NORTHANGER ABBEY, Twitter Version, Chapter 15

Time for another recap of NORTHANGER ABBEY tweets. When last we left our fair heroine, she had finally taken the long-anticipated country walk with Eleanor and Henry Tilney (sigh).

And now, fresh from her triumph on Beechen Cliff, here is Catherine in Chapter 15 of Jane Austen's NORTHANGER ABBEY:

Soon Catherine receives the delightful news that she & Isabella are to be sisters--Isabella & James are engaged!

Isabella says Catherine "will be so infinitely dearer to" her than her own sisters.  "This was a pitch of friendship beyond Catherine."

"You are so like your dear brother," continued Isabella, "that I quite doated on you the first moment I saw you."

"The very first moment I beheld [James] -- my heart was irrecoverably gone…I thought I never saw any body so handsome before."

"Catherine secretly acknowledged the power of love; for, though exceedingly fond of her brother…she had never…thought him handsome."

Isabella fears Catherine's parents will oppose the marriage, for Isabella is poor. "I am sure they will consent," says Catherine.

Isabella: "For my own part…the smallest income in nature would be enough... Where people are really attached, poverty itself is wealth…"

James's parents consent to his marrying Isabella—she's ecstatic. All that is TBD is how much Mr. Morland will give them.

Says John Thorpe to Catherine, "A famous good thing this marrying scheme, upon my soul!...What do you think of it, Miss Morland?"

"I am sure I think it a very good one." Thorpe: "Do you? --that's honest, by heavens!"

Thorpe: "Did you ever hear the old song 'Going to One Wedding Brings on Another?' say, you will come to Belle's wedding, I hope."

[William Beck as John Thorpe in the 2007 adaptation of Northanger Abbey.]

Catherine: "Yes; I have promised your sister to be with her, if possible."

'Forcing a foolish laugh' Thorpe says,: "Then you know, we may try the truth of this same old song."

Thorpe's "song" is one that Catherine would be horrified to think of singing, were she not happily oblivious to his hints.

This Twitter presentation of NORTHANGER ABBEY is brought to you by Beechen Cliff, "a little of the south of France right here in Bath."